Hope everyone had a very merry Christmas.
I’m grateful to TFT reader ArushaTZ for drawing our attention to a rather interesting little discussion on Sky Sports during a rain-break in the South Africa v West Indies test.
Host Charles Colville and sidekick Bob Willis were joined in the studio by Angus Fraser – who’s not only a former England seamer but now director of cricket at Middlesex, and, crucially, an England selector.
Precisely who attends selection meetings, and which of those people has a say in what, has become a hot topic in recent weeks.
Colville inveigled Fraser into lifting the lid, at least slightly.
According to the Middlesex man, the following individuals take part in the meetings:
– James Whitaker
– Peter Moores
– Mick Newell
– Angus Fraser
– Paul Downton (“occasionally”)
– Giles Lindlay – stats analyst (official title is ECB national lead for performance analysis)
– David Parsons – ECB Academy Performance Director
Later in the discussion, something else occurred to him.
AF: One thing I forgot to say – Alastair Cook is at meetings too.
CC: So there’s another person there?
AF: Well, as the England captain. He’s not at every meeting, but Alastair Cook will be at meetings as well.
CC: So if the captain is under a bit of pressure for his form, how does that work? Do you say “just step outside a minute Alastair because we just need to talk about the openers slot and you’re one of them”?
AF: Well he hasn’t been.
CC: What? Under pressure?
AF: Well we haven’t come across that yet, so I don’t know what… [trails off]
CC: Haven’t you?
AF: No.
CC: Oh right. Fine. [appears baffled] What were you saying?
Fraser: I just said that.
At this point, Bob Willis intervened and went all curmudgeonly. Even more than usual. Fraser was previously the Independent’s cricket correspondent, and Willis took him to task on the rarefied ways of the inky cricket press.
According to RGD (and we’re paraphrasing here), the hacks enjoy the best facilities, and get amply fed and watered – but what do they contribute to the game? Sky Sports pump vast funds into the sport via broadcast rights while the newspapers, in effect, just live off the hog. Endless press conferences are staged just so the journalists don’t have to do any real work but simply write down the quotes. How, asked Willis, do the England players feel about being constantly wheeled out for these tedious pressers?
Fraser responded by saying the papers help promote cricket through their coverage. During his own spell on Fleet Street, there were occasions when some of his counterparts became a little precious about “not getting ‘first hits’ and things like that”.
Colville then intervened. “I’m just going to make a note here, Bob wants to be on Cricket Writers On TV in the summer and give the press a serve.”
To which, the former England and Warwickshire fast bowler made this face:
Fascinating Maxie. Compliments to your informer. Was particularly interested in the failing captaincy issue. This must happen over and over. Surely there must be some policy in place or do they just expect a captain to go before he needs to be pushed? Poor dear Cooky.
Bob’s great. The sad thing is though that it usually takes an England humiliation for him to be on his best form.
[…] Thanks to SimonH who pointed me to this article on TFT. […]
It may just be me being a bit thick and not reading properly, but who or what is the RGD referred to in the article?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Willis
His initials became vaguely famous – because he added Dylan to his name in honour of another Bob, his hero.
Ha Ha Ha.
Oh dear,oh dear. It’s turning into Animal Farm.
About time the free loading written cricket media got a good kicking.
Not sure Angus Fraser can be a selecter and a pundit at the same time. But he has let a lot of cats out of the bag today. Notably Cook attending selection meetings.
Breweries and piss ups spring to mind. But not to worry, I’m sure the ECB concern trolls will be along soon to tell us “nothing to see here.”
Not sure Angus Fraser can be a selecter and a pundit at the same time…
Well, it’s clearly possible, if not entirely edifying.
Rather like Jimmy Anderson regularly appearing on R5 to opine on English cricket … and drop the occasional snark about Pietersen.
Alan Lamb has spoken about how when England employed Boycott as a batting coach to help coach the batsman before going on the tour to the WI. He was there to help the players with facing fast bowling.
The problem Lamb had was that Boycott kept his media column in a major newspaper. When it came time for the selection of the squad Boycott wrote in his column that Lamb should not be picked because of his inability against fast bowling. Lamb saw this as a massive conflict of interest. He was confiding in Boycott about his private feelings about how to play fast bowling in the nets and then Boycott was writing a column about it in his view that Lamb was not good enough.
Thankfully Boycott got it wrong because Lamb could play fast bowling and turned out to be a great player for England against the WI
It’s not uncommon around the sports world. Conor O’Shea manages Harlequins in the English Rugby Premiership, and works as a pundit on Irish TV covering internationals for example.
O’Shea is massively on the outer with the IRFU, so he’s quite entertaining as a pundit …
Ermm whilst Fraser might not have been particularly clear or articulate, but I don’t believe it’s unusual for England Captains to attend selection meetings. Indeed the captain not being engaged in some way would be bizarre given that they have to lead the selected players.
True – but not always, and the point is that in the past, there was clarity and openness about the captain’s role in selection. Now, not only with Cook but everyone else, all the roles seem to be muddied and overlapping.
Is Fraser seriously saying that Cook hasn’t been under pressure at selection meetings? If not, why the hell not? He’s an opening batsman who’s made ONE big score in about 2 years, while all his opening partners since Strauss have been discarded for… not making enough runs (or was it just because the ECB didn’t like them? It’s difficult to tell…).
Meanwhile, his captaining abilities certainly don’t justify him being in the team as a “specialist captain”, so to speak. So if he’s not scoring runs any more, and he’s captaincy isn’t good enough to compensate for it to the point where England are winning more games than they’re losing, why hasn’t he been dropped?
Nobody better to captain? Really? Does anybody honestly think Ian Bell, Jimmy Anderson or Stuart Broad would be any worse? Or Joe Root, for that matter? (He’s young, I know, but Graeme Smith was even younger when he got the SA captaincy – and it worked perfectly.)
I strongly suspect Alastair Cook’s international cricketing career will be over for good by the end of 2015 – unless he makes big scores against Boult/Southee, Johnson/Harris and Steyn/Philander/Morkel, of course…
Anon,
I suspect you’re right about the end of Cook’s career. His decline in form certainly looks terminal to me. But the relish with which some will greet Cook’s demise if it happens is truly nauseating.
And what about the relish with which many, including those in the media in particular, greeted the demise of England’s highest ever run maker? In any case, Cook deserves no sympathy at all, as he was the one who went blabbing to Flower about what was said in that players-only meeting.
2 wrongs don’t make a right, Rav. I’m no longer a KP fan, as I’m sure you’ve guessed, but if he ever got back into the team, I’d cheer every run that he scored, because he’s wearing an England shirt. That should be all that matters. Bag the management by all means, but the day any England cricket “fan” starts wanting individual players to fail, or the team to lose, is the day their arguments are no longer worth listening to. Nothing is more important than the team – including whether we’re right or wrong about any of our individual hobby horses.
An interesting philosophical debate Kev! My country right or wrong. Or Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.
Personally I think the paying fan has every right to boo or criticise any player in his team. And seeing as sports administrators have been very quick to align themselves with the entertainment industry over the last few years. (Mainly to justify massive increases in ticket prices ) And as they like calling us customers now, not fans they can have no complaints when we act like customers and refuse to except shoddy performance.
The Premiership football money men in England have argued that you would not blink at paying £60- £150 to watch your favourite band. Well maybe, but at those prices. I expect the guitarist to be able to play the riffs, and the singer to know the words, and sing in tune. If not I am going to complain.
I will cut the sportsman more slack because he is in completion with another team who are trying to beat him. But eventually if you don’t perform, you will get criticised, and eventually demand for you to be dropped will be deafening. And if you them align yourself with management who start calling those fans “outside cricket” you get what you deserve .
Mark,
Totally agree with you about having the right to boo and criticise – trust me, as a Villa fan I’ve done plenty of it. But that’s not the same as actively hoping for individuals – or the team – to fail. Alastair Cook should, in my opinion, be sacked and dropped if he doesn’t score a hundred in the 5 tests before the Ashes – but I can’t stomach anyone telling me that they hope his career ends.
You called all this a civil war in a post yesterday, and you’re absolutely right. So to continue the analogy, do the anti’s (for want of a better word) want total victory or a negotiated peace? Total victory is, presumably, the removal of everyone who defenestrated KP – Clarke, Downton, Flower, Cook and Moores. But that could take another 2 years – and who the hell knows what comes after that? And for all that to happen, England have to be crap for the next 2 years or so.
Accountability is one thing – something I support. But the active relish with which some contemplate the end of Cook’s career is just nauseating – just as nauseating btw, as some of the triumphalism that greeted KP’s demise.
We’re better than this, aren’t we??
At least Dhoni had the good sense to jump before he was pushed when he saw the writing on the wall! No steely core for that lad!….”F**k this, I’m off, and gonna do what I do best!”
Kev,
I would like the removal of Downton because I think he is incompetent. As to Giles Clarke that is a matter for the counties. They get to vote on him. I would like Flower’s role in the England set up properly defined. Does he have any input into first team affairs? For example on selection of coach or captain? If so that power must be removed. Personally I don’t think he is the right person to coach the next generation because he has shown with KP and others he does not deal well with people of independent thought. (Something we need more of in English cricket. Not less.)
As for the captain. All I want is the best person for the job and only picked on cricket criteria. The interests of ECBs sponsors are not a fans priority. I’m not remotely interested in the well being of Waitrose. I don’t support Waitrose, I support England. If the cupboard of potential captains is not very well stocked then it is important that whoever is captain is made accountable, and does not become TINA. Cook has had more than enough time to show he is any good, and is improving. (Aprox 2 years) He has failed to to do so. For what it’s worth, and I know it is not fashionable to have bowlers as captains, but I think Anderson would have been a much better tactical captain than Cook. By all accounts it was he and Broad who decided to dump all the plans and just bowl naturally which turned around the India series.
Is Peter Moores really the best coach England can get? Even when they hire a head hunting company? As I have said on here before the coach is the least of my priorities. I think their role is over inflated. Although a bad coach can do more damage than a good one can improve a team. (I think it was your mate Ian Chappell who said………… “coaches are for driving round the countryside in.” ;-)
It’s often said that ‘textgate’ needs to be seen in context. The same could be said for Cook speaking to Flower of the team meeting.
I don’t quite follow what you mean. Could you elaborate? Do you mean more in the sense of ‘mitigation for Cook’ (of which I’m not aware of any, eager to know if there is some), or in the direction of ‘no mitigation for KP’? Or something different? Sorry.
In mitigation for Cook. Who knows how the disclosure came about. In other words, in what context. Did he go rushing to Flower, saying, ‘wait till you hear what KP just said’ or did that particular conversation evolve in some other more understandable way. I must say I was very surprised to read about it. Seemed out of character to me.
Thanks for the explanation. On this point my cynical side tells me that the silence coming from the ECB may mean there aren’t any extenuating circumstances for Cook (at least that they want out in the public domain).
However, I know nothing (goes without saying!), and the ECB’s PR department is probably its most cack-handed office anyway, so it’s not impossible that the circumstances exist, and have been filed away in a drawer somewhere!
Thanks! Favourite!
In the end, it was the ECB who made it about personalities, not performance. Cook is just as much a victim of their politicisation of English cricket as KP.
If they hadn’t set up a cult of personality around Cook, they would have been able to do what was best for him – i.e. drop him from both Test and ODI teams and send him back to Essex to rebuild his batting technique. Once he’d done that, he could have forced his way back into the team by smashing around county attacks for a year or so, and he’d be back as an opening batsman for England (in Tests only), in the form of his life, and without the burden of captaincy.
Funnily enough, it was KP who pointed out in a Telegraph column that Cook should be playing like Matty Hayden right now; he’s an opener in fantastic physical shape, a senior player in the team (even if he shouldn’t be the captain), and with several years ahead of him: easily enough time to become England’s all-time biggest run-scorer.
As it stands, this may never happen. That’s what the ECB have done to him – and us.
To be fair to the ECB, while Cook may have attended selection meetings presumably unless Matt Prior was there too he wouldn’t actually have been able to say anything.
Very funny John. I believe I may be smirking. Lol
The interesting thing here is not that Cook attends some selection meetings (which seems trivial) but that Fraser made a point of saying it. I don’t want to over-interpret, but it is at least probable that he was one of the no votes for Cook carrying on in ODIs. Join the dots…
“The papers help to promote cricket”…???….he’s having a laugh isn’t he? With the embedded hacks having their snouts in the trough all they’re going to do is broadcast the ECB mantra, and repeat the quotes from anodine “press conferences” as he so readily admits!
If they were forced to pay for their own tickets I wonder how many would actually attend a match?
Good post. Perhaps this is Fraser subtly signalling (perhaps not intentionally) that he’s not all comfortable with the Cook situation.
As for Willis and the press. The inky press have an important role – since they aren’t beholden to the game monetarily they should be holding the ECB to account on behalf of the supporters.
Only, as we all know, the inky press can’t seem to live up to their role.
It should be part of a journalists DNA to be cynical and untrusting of people in authority. The Gang of Four resemble a group of mediaeval courtiers nodding their heads when the Pope says the Earth is flat…
There has never been an England captain so protected by so much of the media. Even Mike Brearley came in for criticism because of his batting. The media split into groups over Gower and Gating. Gooch had certain sections of the media who did not like his approach. In 1988 thanks to barmaids and rebel tours England had 4 different men go out and toss up as captain in a 5 test series.
Remember Atherton and the dirt in the pocket? I well remember Agnew giving him such terrible stick. It resulted in Atherton referring to the media as the “gutter press.” Nasser was given a real kicking when he pointed to the 3 on his back after scoring a century.
But not darling Cook. Why? That is the question.
That’s a good question Mark. Not even KP had a bad word to say against Cook. Perhaps the people who are closer to him know him better for who he is and value him accordingly. I have no way of knowing. This is just a reasoned guess.
Mark,
I didn’t read much of the UK Ashes press coverage, so I’m going to be guided by what people tell me on this – but did Cook seriously not get any media criticism either during or post-Ashes? He must have done, surely? From Botham if no one else. Even if people were arguing that he should be retained as captain (as I was), they can’t have been doing that without acknowledging that much of his Ashes captaincy was horrible – can they?
For what it’s worth, he got an absolute slating here. And that was before Ian Chappell kneecapped him in every commentary stint :)
I like Ian Chappell. He talks a lot of sense, but doesn’t he kneecap every Pommy captain?
I think he kneecaps every captain who’s not Australian. His disdain for MS Dhoni has been on full display this week!
About Cook and the inky media at least…it was acknowledged that he needed runs and was far from brilliant in the field but never the less he had huge personal support. Along the lines of the Ageas Bowl crowd. Every little success was greeted with huge acclaim. That got up a lot of noses.
@BigKev67
Without going into too much detail, because it really has been done to death all year, there was when it came to Cook a fairly clear divide between:
– Former England captains and very famous Test players, cf. Vaughan, Boycott, Botham, Hussain, who called it how they saw it and that meant being very critical a lot of the time.
– Certain journalists, particularly Selvey, Newman, Pringle and Brenkley, but also including Steve James, Michael Calvin and even Scyld Berry, whose coverage has been at times absurdly hagiographic.
I’m afraid to say that it is precisely *because* their coverage was so hagiographic that people reacted against Cook.
Thanks Arron. So the divide has basically been between the print media and TV pundits/commentators? Interesting. I wonder why that is? If it’s an issue of protecting access, you’d have thought Sky would have been even more embedded in the cricket establishment than the print guys. Anyway, a discussion for another thread.
Thanks again for the clarification.
I didn’t mention Sky because I cancelled it in March.
However, some would probably attempt to build a similar case around:
– Gower calling critics of Cook on social media “lunatics and numpties”
– A Hello-standard soft-focus interview of Paul Downton at the start of the Test summer, featuring glowing testimonies from two former apartheid tourists and a current England selector (all of whom played for Middlesex!)
– The contrasting treatment of Andrew Strauss for his use of the c-word, and Kevin Pietersen for questioning the credentials of Nick Knight as a Test commentator
– Alastair Cook stating that “something must be done” about Warne’s critical commentary, and a somewhat incriminating photograph of Cook and Warne in conversation, with Downton in close attendance, a few days later. Several people noted that Warne toned it down thereafter; obviously I don’t know how true this is.
You could also throw TMS in there as well – Agnew was consistently supportive and rarely was a journalist outside the “Gang of Four” invited on at lunchtime; Swann called him ‘Cooky’ throughout; and Simon Hughes provided my favourite moment of the SL ODI series when he banged on about Cook’s integrity, allowing batsmen to cross the rope first at the end of a session and holding doors open for women, while on the pitch Cook faced 8 consecutive balls and scored 2 runs.
Berry is at it again today, by the way:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/cricket/11310498/Cricket-review-2014-Death-of-Philip-Hughes-made-the-game-stop-reflect-and-mourn.html#disqus_thread
Blimey – there’s probably a whole post in this:
“If the vast majority supported Cook’s Test captaincy, the support for him as one-day captain eroded as the year went on – he made only one ODI half-century, and that was a score of 56 – until the vitriol was flowing so fast by the end of England’s tour of Sri Lanka that the selectors followed the public mood and fired him.
“It was not only Pietersen’s supporters who had kept on, and on, criticising Cook: above all, it was former England captains. There was more to it though than the failure to accept the modern reality that the runs of the England captain are going to dry up in any format, after an initial surge, because of the demands and criticisms.
“Cook seemed to be guilty of doing the opposite of capturing the zeitgeist: selfless decency and devotion to duty no longer exist in public life, and he was slated for being an anachronism. And of course the easiest person to fire is the man of selfless decency.”
A very interesting glimpse but a mildly alarming one, I suggest. I cannot see the point in having a group of selectors who do not select. Almost all of the people mentioned ought to have some input to the process (except for Paul Downton, who can have no role in selection that I understand) but surely only Messrs Whittaker, Fraser and Newell should decide the outcome? They are there to select and do so fearlessly. Others can inform them but that is their role.
If they are the only people who select then there are advantages. I would suggest it is often easier (unless you like upsetting people) to make difficult decisions in the privacy of your own counsel rather than with all other interested (and not disinterested) parties present. It may be easier to explain a decision after it is taken than to do so as you are going along. But you do need to explain it, which the current ECB set-up generally fidns a very hard thing to do.
I respect the argument that says the captain has to have the team he or she wants but don’t agree with it. Selectors select from knowledge (if they are not good at it they need to go) not from the more limited experience of the captain or coach who cannot be expected these days to be able to see far beyond the players in front of him or her. The captain’s view needs to be heard and respected but it should not be determinative. Matt Prior has been a terrific player for England (whatever the relationship latterly with Kevin Pietersen) but I wonder if an unfettered selection group would have persisted as they did last summer?
In fairness, and to play devil’s advocate for a moment, Alastair Cook has more test cricket experience in one of his toenails than three of the selectors do in their entirety.
Test caps:
Cook – 109
Fraser – 46
Whitaker – 1
Newell – 0
Moores – 0
Although I take your point that no England captain will ever be able to follow closely what’s happening on the county circuit.
Maxie,
You have a sound point there but I am not sure that good judgement and experience are necessarily the same thing. For instance, it would be a difficult argument to run that AC’s judgement (and performance) as a captain had improved as he has gained more experience doing it! He is, however, an extreme case so maybe my argument doesn’t stand up too well.
My own issue was perhaps aimed primarily at objectivity in decision-making on selection (as well as wider knowledge) and taking necessary tough decisions but, of course, I agree there has to be good experience and knowledge to back it up. Until the very end Geoff Miller’s selection team seemed to do a pretty fair job overall and the profile was not so very different, although clearly Ashley Giles had a longish England career.
Thanks for the work you and others do to make this a stimulating place to visit and to see different views.
Good points – I *was* only playing devil’s advocate! I agree that the selectors, unlike the captain, can be truly disinterested (in the genuine, not Downtonian sense of the word). Whether they have actually been able to act independently in the last year is another matter.
I suppose what I was getting at is the remarkable lack of international experience among the selectors – three of the four have none at all. Is this really the best-qualified set of four people available?
Thanks for your kind words.
Please excuse the plagiarism from Warne but has Cook really played 109 Tests or has he played 1 Test 109 times? Even the ECB management say he is a weak captain and is a work in progress. I would think that Angus Fraser knows exactly how the ECB and its selectors work given the treatment he had when Raymond was the supremo
That’s a good point about Matt Prior. I cannot understand how he was ever passed fit to play. Someone should have been sacked/sent for retraining or moved to accounts.
So there are potentially 8 people in a selection meeting? Regardless of who actually has a vote (only the 4 official selectors), it’s completely unnecessary.
Whittaker, Newman, Moores and Fraser should obviously be there.
Downton was right to attend the first selection meeting or two – as MD he needs to be aware of how they are run – but he has no reason to have attended any since the start of the summer.
Cook should give his thoughts prior the meeting – his thoughts are very valid, but he is too close to the team to be part of these meetings (one reason Michael Clarke stopped being an official selector). His thoughts can be passed on Moores who naturally he would have spoken to a lot, or Whittaker can organise debriefs between himself and Cook.
Likewise, the selectors should ask the Statistician for any data prior to the meeting. Neither him nor Cook needs to be there in person.
Parsons should be there for any discussion of EPP and Lions trips, not the senior team though (this may already be the case).
Newman should certainly not be there! Obviously meant Newell.
I imagine that it’s for the selectors to decide who they want or don’t want in their meeting at any point in the proceedings. Things would be daft otherwise. Their role would be comprised to the point of being ridiculous. Maybe I’m naive but I can’t believe that would be allowed to happen.